"I found him among the bodies."

Selene's voice barely carried over the crackling hearth. She did not shout. She did not boast. She simply let the tears spill over her pale cheeks.

The great hall fell entirely silent. Dozens of pack elders and council members watched her.

"He couldn't remember his name," she continued, dabbing her eyes with a lace handkerchief. "He was dying."

Damian sat beside her. His massive hand rested on the carved wooden back of her chair. A protective, territorial shield.

"I stayed." Selene shifted her gaze directly to me. "I stayed when no one else would."

A sharp, ugly laugh clawed at my throat. I swallowed it down. I clamped my teeth into my lower lip until the metallic taste of blood flooded my tongue.

"We lived in a ruined cabin," Selene told the room, her tone gentle and unassuming. "For three years, we had nothing. I scavenged for roots in the snow. I boiled bark to clean his wounds. I hid his scent from the raiders who swept the valley."

She brushed a hand over the sleeping infant in her arms.

"He woke up screaming in the dark," she murmured, her chin trembling. "He didn't know who he was. He didn't know where he was. But I kept him safe. I gave him a family."

Every word she spoke pressed down on my shoulders. The heavy mantle of Luna felt like a joke. She had the man. I only had an empty stone fortress. She made me feel small in my own home.

I stepped off the lower stair. My boots hit the floorboards with a dull thud.

"You survived the northern ambush?" I asked, keeping my eyes fixed on the man in the Alpha throne.

Damian gave a single, stiff nod. "I remember waking in a forest. Everything before that is empty."

"Blackthorn soldiers searched that forest for months," I stated. "We combed every inch of the blood-soaked dirt. We sent tracking hounds. We questioned every trader on the northern road."

"No one found me."

"I searched too," I countered. "I rode with the vanguard for six weeks. We found the slaughtered guards. We found the broken wagons. We never found a cabin."

Selene quickly dropped her chin. She stared at the hem of her dress.

Her knuckles turned white.

I caught the tiny hesitation. The sudden, rigid tension in her spine.

"You were there," I said.

Selene's head snapped up. All the color drained from her face. "What?"

"You were in the forest." I took another step forward. "Before the ambush. You were already there."

Damian shoved himself up from the throne. The heavy wood scraped violently against the stone floor.

"Enough." His voice echoed off the rafters.

"Ask her," I pushed.

"I said enough, Elara."

I stopped. The sound of my name in his mouth felt wrong. Cold. Hollow.

I reached into the bodice of my dress. My fingers brushed the cool metal resting against my collarbone. I pulled the silver chain free.

A small, polished wolf tooth hung from the center.

Damian froze.

The anger drained out of his posture. His golden eyes locked onto the silver charm.

It was our private keepsake. Carved from the fang of a rogue bear he killed during his first hunt. He wore the matching half into battle. We exchanged them the night before his final campaign.

I held the chain out toward him.

"You gave me this."

He stared at the silver tooth. His chest expanded with a sharp inhale.

I watched his hands. His right hand twitched. His fingers curled inward, then released. A sudden, violent shudder ripped through his broad shoulders.

*Mine.*

My wolf felt the echo of his wolf slamming against his ribs. The bond sparked, raw and desperate.

Damian's arm raised. His hand shook uncontrollably. He reached across the empty space between us.

Our fingertips brushed.

A blinding flash of pain struck my temples. The mate bond surged, forcing a shared memory into the open air between us.

*A woman's voice pleading in the dark. Don't leave me.*

*A desperate, bruising kiss against a scarred neck.*

*Tangled linen sheets on a massive oak bed.*

*Snow falling heavily outside a frosted windowpane, the hearth fire popping.*

*His own voice, deep and vibrating with laughter. You're my entire world.*

Damian gasped. He yanked his hand back as if the silver had burned him to the bone.

The chain slipped from my fingers.

The silver tooth hit the stone floor.

*Crack.*

The metal split straight down the middle. Two broken halves skittered across the gray rock.

I stared at the shattered pieces.

"No," I whispered.

My wolf let out a high, agonizing whimper. My knees lost their strength. I swayed, catching myself on the edge of the council table.

Damian clutched the side of his head. He looked at my face, his features twisted in agony.

He looked sick. His breathing turned ragged. I saw the desperate confusion bleeding into his eyes. He didn't understand why seeing me hurt him. He didn't understand why my tears made his chest cave in.

His wolf wanted to cross the room. His wolf wanted to drop to its knees and gather the broken silver.

Selene practically threw herself out of her chair.

"Damian!"

She rushed to his side. She shoved her hand into the deep pocket of her woolen skirt and pulled out a small leather flask.

"Your medicine," she urged, unstopping the cork. "Drink."

He grabbed the flask. He tipped his head back and swallowed the dark liquid.

I watched his throat work.

One second. Two seconds. Three.

The rigid tension melted out of his muscles. The frantic confusion in his eyes vanished, replaced by a dull, glassy calm. The pressure in the room evaporated.

My gaze dropped to the leather flask.

"What is that?" I demanded.

"Herbal tea," Selene answered softly, tucking the flask away.

"From where?"

Selene offered a weak, trembling smile. "My family knows many healing herbs. It helps with his headaches."

I looked back at Damian. The orchid scent radiating off him grew stronger, masking his natural pine.

"Don't drink it," I told him.

His face darkened instantly. The glassy calm shattered into pure hostility.

"You've done enough," he snapped.

"That tea is wrong. It's doing something to your mind. It's erasing you."

"I'm tired of your accusations. You stand in my hall and insult the mother of my child."

"I am not accusing her."

"Then what are you doing?" he shouted, stepping down from the dais.

"Trying to save you."

He stopped inches from my face. The heat of his anger washed over me.

"Save me from what?"

"From something you can't remember."

Silence stretched between us. The entire pack held its collective breath.

Damian stared down at me. The golden light in his eyes held no warmth. No recognition.

"Stay away from me," he ordered.

The words struck my chest harder than a physical blow. The rejection finalized the fracture in my soul.

I searched his face. I looked for the boy who promised me the moon. I looked for the man who swore I was his only home.

"You really don't remember?" I asked, my voice cracking.

"No."

I swallowed the massive lump of grief blocking my throat.

"I love you."

His jaw tightened into a rigid line.

"I don't."

My wolf folded entirely in on herself, burying her face under her paws in the dark void of my mind.

I refused to let him see the tears spill. I refused to let Selene watch me break.

I turned on my heel. I walked away from the throne. I walked away from the broken silver on the floor. I walked straight down the center aisle of the great hall.

Behind me, Damian stood perfectly still. He watched me leave.

He had his new family. He had his medicine.

But as the heavy oak doors slammed shut behind me, I knew he was standing there, unable to figure out why his chest felt like it had just been split wide open.

And I knew exactly what I needed to do to prove the tea was poison.

**Chapter 4: Chapter 4**

By morning, two guards were already hauling my oak-framed portrait down the corridor. A maid rushed past, clutching the silver Luna seal to her chest, refusing to meet my eyes.

By sunrise, my chamber was a hollow shell. My personal detail had been reassigned to the western watch.

I followed the trail of my dismantled life straight into the council room.

Martha stood at the head of the long ironwood table. The elders flanked her, their expressions unreadable.

"Until Alpha Damian fully recovers," Martha announced, her voice echoing off the stone walls, "Selene will represent the household."

I stopped at the threshold. "You're removing me."

Martha turned. She adjusted the dark shawl over her shoulders. "You abandoned the pack emotionally the moment Damian disappeared."

A bitter laugh scraped my throat. "I stayed."

"You waited for a dead man."

"I waited for my mate."

Martha raised her chin, her gaze turning to ice. "And what did that give us?"

The heavy wooden doors creaked open behind me.

Selene walked in. She cradled the infant tightly against her chest.

The atmosphere in the room shifted instantly. The tension broke. Three elders offered warm smiles. The council scribe bowed his head. They looked at the child as if she carried a royal treasure, a sacred relic wrapped in wool.

"Blackthorn finally has an heir," Martha declared.

I stared at the tiny face peeking out from the blankets.

I searched my chest for hatred. I found none. The baby was completely innocent. He did not ask to be born into this mess.

That realization made the pain infinitely worse. The boy was blameless, yet his very existence formed a perfect, unblockable weapon against me.

Martha stepped away from the table, closing the distance between us. "And you never gave us one."

All the blood drained from my face. My fingers curled into tight fists. "Because Damian was gone."

"You could have produced a child before he left."

"Mother."

The single word cut through the room like a whip.

Everyone turned. Damian sat in the corner shadow, his massive frame rigid in the high-backed chair.

His golden eyes locked onto Martha. "Enough."

My heart slammed against my ribs. A tiny, desperate spark of hope ignited in my chest. He defended me. The real Damian was still in there, fighting his way to the surface.

Then Selene moved.

She stepped closer to his chair and placed her pale hand on his wrist.

Damian's attention shifted immediately. The harsh lines of his jaw relaxed. He looked at her fingers, then up to her face, completely forgetting I was in the room.

The spark in my chest died, leaving only cold ash behind.

Martha turned back to me, emboldened by her son's distraction. "Luna authority is not a charity."

"I never asked for charity," I fired back.

"You have no bloodline. You are an orphan who manipulated a young Alpha. Now, the natural order is restoring itself."

I slowly straightened my spine. I let go of the desperate, pleading girl who had cried in the rain yesterday.

"No," I said quietly.

I looked around the room, meeting the eyes of every elder who had praised my leadership just last month.

"I have no bloodline. But I have scars."

Silence blanketed the council.

My voice grew steadier, ringing loud and clear. "I have scars from defending this pack. I have buried your soldiers when the northern tribes attacked. I have carried your children out of burning homes while the vanguard was miles away."

I pointed a finger at the center of the table.

"I have negotiated with enemies you were too frightened to face! You all sat behind these walls while I stood outside them."

No one answered. The elders stared at the floorboards. Even Martha pressed her lips into a thin, white line.

I turned my head and fixed my gaze on the man in the corner.

"And I waited for him."

Damian flinched.

A sharp, sudden pain pierced his skull. He squeezed his eyes shut.

A memory forced its way through the fog in his mind.

*Snow falling in thick sheets.*

*A woman standing in the freezing wind, her hands cracked and bleeding from hauling timber.*

*His own voice, echoing through the frost. 'Elara!'*

*He was running toward her. He was wrapping his heavy coat around her shivering shoulders. 'You don't have to carry everything,' he whispered against her hair.*

The memory vanished, replaced by a blinding throb behind his eyes.

Damian let out a low groan. He pressed the heel of his hand hard against his forehead, leaning forward in the chair.

I saw the agony twist his features.

My instincts screamed at me to run to him. My feet shifted. I wanted to close the distance, to pull his head against my chest and soothe the pain exactly the way I used to.

But I stayed planted on the floor.

I looked at Selene's hand, still resting on his arm.

I was learning. Even love had limits. I could not bleed myself dry to fix a man who refused to see me.

"Damian?" Selene whispered, her voice laced with sudden panic. She reached into her pocket. "Do you need your tea?"

He didn't answer. He kept his hand pressed to his skull, his breathing ragged and shallow.

Then, very slowly, Damian lifted his head.

His golden eyes bypassed Selene entirely. They locked straight onto mine.

The hazy calm was gone. For one terrifying, electrifying second, he looked at me with absolute, desperate clarity.

"Elara," he choked out, voice rough with sudden terror. "What did I do?"

Before I could take a step, Selene shoved the uncorked flask against his lips.

It happened after midnight.

I woke to the scent of rain-soaked earth.

No. Not just rain.

Cedar. Storm.

My heart stopped beating. The blood froze in my veins. The orchid stench that had choked the fortress for two days vanished, replaced entirely by the raw, untamed scent of my mate.

Damian stood in my doorway.

He leaned his massive frame against the wooden frame. His linen shirt hung open, exposing the jagged scars on his chest. His dark hair stuck out in wild, untamed angles. He swayed, his heavy boots scuffing the floorboards.

He was drunk.

"Why am I here?" he rasped. His voice sounded thick. Lost.

I pushed the heavy furs off my legs and sat up. "I don't know."

He pushed off the doorframe. He stumbled over the threshold. Moonlight sliced through the tall window, illuminating the harsh, confused lines of his face. He didn't look at my eyes. His golden gaze dropped straight to my collarbone.

To the faded, jagged scar of his claiming mark.

His hand lifted. His thick fingers hovered inches from my skin, trembling violently.

"Who did this?"

"You did."

All the color drained from his face. "No."

"Not physically."

He pressed his thumb against the ruined tissue. A violent shudder ripped through his massive shoulders. His features contorted in sudden, blinding agony.

Deep in my mind, my white wolf howled. His wolf answered, slamming against the cage in his mind.

*Mate.*

The word hung in the air between us, unspoken but deafening.

Damian swallowed hard. His chest heaved. "Why does looking at you hurt?"

Tears burned the back of my eyes. I refused to let them fall. "Because somewhere inside you, you remember."

He grabbed my upper arms. His grip bruised my skin, hauling me forward. The sudden movement stole the air from my lungs. He buried his face in my hair. He rested his heavy forehead against mine.

For one perfect, shattered second, I felt him.

The man who used to trace my spine in the dark. The Alpha who swore I was his entire world. The heat of his skin, the familiar rhythm of his heartbeat against my chest—it was all exactly the same.

"Why do I remember your crying?" he whispered. His voice broke on the last word.

"You loved me."

"I..."

He flinched. He jerked his head back, squeezing his eyes shut. A low groan tore from his throat.

The illusion shattered instantly. The sharp, bitter scent of moonflower oil invaded my nose, cutting right through his natural cedar. It seeped out of his pores, toxic and heavy. Medicine. Poison.

"Damian."

"What?" he growled, pressing the heels of his hands against his temples.

"Stop drinking it."

His eyes snapped open. The golden irises clouded over, the vulnerable clarity replaced by a glassy haze. "What?"

"Selene's tea. Don't drink it anymore."

The confusion vanished. A rigid, defensive posture locked his muscles into place. "You think she'd hurt me?"

"I think she already has."

He shoved himself away from the bed. Pain twisted his mouth into a cruel, unrecognizable line. He didn't argue. He didn't ask questions. He just turned his back on me and walked out into the dark hallway, leaving the door wide open.

***

The morning frost bit at my ankles as I crossed the stone courtyard.

A crowd had already gathered near the central fountain. Pack elders, guards, and servants formed a tight circle.

Selene stood in the center. She wept loudly. She clutched the swaddled infant tight against her chest, burying her face in the wool blankets.

Damian stood beside her. Dark circles bruised the skin under his eyes. He looked entirely hollowed out, as if he hadn't slept a single minute since leaving my room.

"She came to my room last night," Selene cried out. She made sure every guard and maid heard her trembling voice.

The whispers started immediately.

I froze on the cobblestones.

Selene pointed a shaking finger directly at me. "She told me I was disgusting."

The bottom dropped out of my stomach. Every eye in the courtyard snapped to my face.

"That isn't true," I said, my voice ringing across the stones.

Selene let out a wretched sob. "She said I was ruining her life!"

Damian turned toward me. The exhaustion in his face hardened into something vicious. A cold, unyielding fury radiated from his broad shoulders. The dark entity that had taken hold of his mind flared to life.

"How dare you?" His voice cracked like a whip across the open air.

I held my ground. I dug my fingernails into my palms. "I didn't."

"You entered my room."

"No."

"You tried to seduce me."

I stared at him, completely blindsided. The sheer audacity of the lie knocked the air from my lungs. "What?"

"You knew I was vulnerable," he snarled. He closed the distance between us in three massive strides. "You saw me struggling, and you used it."

"Damian, you came to my door."

"Stop lying!" he roared. The sound rattled the windows of the fortress. "You slipped into my chambers while my family slept down the hall."

"I wanted my husband back."

"You should be ashamed."

The words hit me harder than physical blows. He wasn't just rejecting me. He was rewriting the truth. He was twisting his own desperate search for answers into a weapon to protect the woman poisoning him.

"You tried to force a bond that doesn't exist," Damian continued, his volume rising.

"You know that's a lie," I fired back. "You touched my claiming mark. You felt the bond."

Selene gasped loudly, clutching the baby tighter. "Damian, make her stop!"

He pointed a massive finger at my chest. "Do not speak of that mark. You manipulated a fractured mind. You poured poison into my ear while I was disoriented."

"The only poison here is the tea she feeds you!"

"Enough!"

The command forced my wolf to submit. My knees buckled slightly, but I locked my joints. I refused to kneel in the dirt for a man who called me a liar.

"Ask the night guard," I challenged, my voice shaking with suppressed rage. "Ask whoever was stationed in the east wing. They saw you walk to my door."

Damian's jaw clenched tightly. "I dismissed the night guard early."

Convenient.

I looked at the man I had mourned for three years. I searched for the boy who gave me a silver wolf tooth. I searched for the Alpha who fought his own mother for my honor.

Nothing remained.

Only a stranger manipulated by orchids and toxic tea.

"You're destroying yourself," I told him quietly.

"I am protecting my family from you."

Damian turned his back on me. He walked back to Selene. He wrapped a protective arm around her shaking shoulders and escorted her toward the fortress doors.

The crowd dispersed. They muttered insults under their breath. They cast venomous glares in my direction.

I stood alone by the frozen fountain.

The cold seeped through my boots, chilling me to the bone. My white wolf curled into a tight, silent ball in the darkest corner of my mind. She didn't howl. She didn't scratch at the mental walls.

She simply gave up.

I finally understood.

Hope was no longer saving me.

It was killing me.

And if I stayed in Blackthorn another day, they would make sure I didn't survive the execution.

A shadow fell over the cobblestones. I turned my head.

Thomas stood by the armory door, a twisted smile playing on his lips, holding a piece of parchment bearing the Alpha's official seal.

"She sold herself."

The whispered words drifted around the stone corner of the training yard, cutting through the damp afternoon air.

"I heard it started the moment Damian went missing."

"Griffin Locke doesn't just hand over three hundred Stonebrook soldiers out of the goodness of his heart. She traded her body for that army."

"I heard she begged him on her knees."

"Disgusting. And she calls herself our Luna."

I stepped out from the shadow of the armory wall.

"Keep going."

The three women froze. A basket of wet laundry slipped from a maid's hands, hitting the mud with a wet slap.

I stared at them. "Don't stop now. I want to hear exactly how I managed to seduce the Stonebrook Alpha."

No one moved. The tallest woman, a baker's wife, lowered her eyes to the dirt.

"Look at me," I commanded.

The woman flinched but kept her chin tucked.

"Who started this rumor?"

Silence.

"If you are brave enough to drag my name through the mud, you are brave enough to tell me where you got the dirt."

The youngest girl trembled. "The taverns. The guards were talking about it over ale."

"And who told the guards?"

"Lady Selene," the girl squeaked out. "She was in the kitchens. She told the cook she felt terrible for Alpha Damian. She said it was a tragedy he returned to a tainted mate."

I let out a short, harsh laugh.

"Tainted."

"We merely talked about what we heard," the baker's wife muttered, finally glancing up. "Everyone knows you spent nights in his camp."

"Next time you repeat a lie," I said, voice dropping to a deadly calm, "remember who stood on these walls and bled for you while you hid in the cellars."

I turned my back on them and walked away.

I didn't make it halfway across the courtyard before Thomas stepped into her path. He held a rolled parchment bearing the official council seal.

"You are making a scene," Thomas said.

"I am correcting a lie."

"Are you?" Thomas unrolled the paper. "Because the council held a vote this morning. Your alliance with Stonebrook is under formal investigation."

I snatched the parchment from his hands. "An investigation into what? Griffin Locke saved this pack."

"Griffin Locke hated Blackthorn for a decade. Then you rode to his border alone, and suddenly he sent his vanguard to protect our gates. The council demands to know the true price of that treaty."

"I gave him the eastern trade route."

"A route that was practically worthless during the winter."

"A route that gave his merchants direct access to the sea!" I countered. "I negotiated!"

I shoved the paper back into Thomas's chest. "We argued over supply lines until sunrise. He called me stubborn. I called him arrogant. Then he signed the treaty because I brought him a solution, not a plea."

Thomas sneered. "A very convenient cover story. Selene thinks otherwise."

"Selene wasn't here." I stepped directly into his space. "When the northern raiders breached the lower gate, Griffin's soldiers died defending your home."

"He sent troops because you warmed his bed."

"Griffin Locke respected me," I hissed. "He listened to me. Something this family knows absolutely nothing about."

"Your lover is miles away, Elara. And Damian has officially stripped your command of the guard. You have nothing."

"I have the truth."

"The truth is whatever the Alpha says it is." Thomas smoothed his collar. "And Damian thinks you're a whore."

***

Night fell over Blackthorn.

Rain hammered against the glass of the high tower window.

I sat alone in the dark, pulled my knees to the chest and rested my chin on the arms.

The fortress was silent. No guards stood outside. No maids brought any dinner. I was entirely isolated.

I stared at the water streaking down the glass.

*Damian thinks you're a whore.*

The words echoed in my mind, loud and sharp.

Three years.

I had spent three years waking up before dawn to review border reports. I had rationed my own meals to ensure the orphans had enough grain during the winter. I had sold my mother's wedding ring to buy steel for the soldiers' swords.

I had fought for this pack.

I had bled for Damian's legacy.

And they repaid me by spitting on my name.

I thought of Damian. I pictured his golden eyes, clouded with poison and suspicion. He didn't want to be saved. He wanted the soft, weeping woman who fed him toxic tea and stroked his ego. He wanted the lie.

Then I thought of Griffin.

I remembered the grueling ride to Stonebrook three years ago. The freezing rain. The hostile stares of Griffin's border patrol. I had walked straight into his command tent without a weapon, demanding an audience.

Griffin had been cleaning a broadsword. He hadn't even looked up at first.

*Blackthorn is burning,* I had told him.

*Let it burn,* he had answered.

*If we fall, the northern tribes take the valley. You'll be next.*

That made him look up.

I remembered the Stonebrook Alpha sitting across a map-strewn table later that night. He had dark, calculating eyes and a jaw carved from granite. When I demanded his troops, he hadn't laughed. He hadn't dismissed me.

*You ask for a lot, little Luna,* Griffin had said.

*I ask for what I need,* I had replied.

He had studied me for a long minute. Then he handed me a pen.

He had treated me like an equal.

I lowered my legs. I pressed the bare feet against the cold stone floor.

A deep, heavy exhaustion settled into my bones. It wasn't the ache of physical labor. It was the crushing weight of a one-sided war.

I had spent my entire adult life trying to prove I was worthy of the Luna title. Trying to prove I was worthy of Damian's love.

"Why?" I whispered to the empty room.

No one answered.

I stood up and walked to the small mirror hanging above the washbasin.

The woman staring back at me had dark circles under her eyes and a pale, drawn face. She looked like a ghost haunting her own life.

"I'm done."

I spoke the words clearly. They didn't shake.

"I am done."

I would not fight for a man who looked at me with disgust. I would not protect a pack that called me a traitor.

I turned away from the mirror, walked to the heavy oak wardrobe, and pulled the doors open. i bypassed the silk dresses and Luna gowns. i reached for my sturdy leather riding trousers and a thick wool cloak.

A sharp rap sounded at my door.

The knock came again. Two heavy strikes against the wood.

I crossed the room and pulled the heavy iron handle.

A man stood in the shadowed corridor. He wore a heavy leather riding cloak, completely soaked from the rain. Water dripped from his hood onto the floorboards.

He didn't wear Blackthorn colors.

He wore deep crimson and iron gray.

Stonebrook.

The man reached into his cloak and pulled out a sealed parchment.

"Luna Elara," he said, his voice a low rumble. "A message from Alpha Locke."

He pressed the letter into my hand.

"He heard what is happening here. He says it is time to collect his debt."